• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.15-32
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• 2024

This study aimed to investigate the perceptions and preferences of foreigners residing in Korea towards K-fashion. It sought to provide suggestions for the future development of K-fashion targeting this growing demographic. The results revealed that the longer foreigners had lived in Korea, the more positively they rated Korean fashion, shopping, and culture. The majority of foreigners purchased K-fashion items online, with popular choices including T-shirts, jackets, shirts, and jeans. Both men and women identified shoulders as a common problematic area when wearing clothing, with some issues also reported in the lumbar region. In terms of preferences, younger males (teens and twenties) were more inclined towards fads and celebrity wear compared to older males (thirties and forties). Similarly, younger females (teens and twenties) showed a higher preference for functionality and celebrity wear compared to older females (thirties and forties). These findings suggest that men tend to prioritize aesthetic factors when choosing K-fashion, while women prioritize practical considerations. To better cater to foreign consumers, suggestions for the development of K-fashion include promoting it through K-pop stars, considering dimensions related to foreigners' shoulders when designing top items, diversifying colors, sizes, and patterns, and providing English versions of online shopping platforms.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.73-88
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• 2008

The media culture influences upon young people while introducing new cultures by every hour. Considering the mainstream culture, in which media has the greatest effect on young people, this article examines the symbolic significances of youth fashion through media culture. The results of this study can be summarized as the following: First, young people's popular culture ("pop culture") is becoming the medium that leads to the creation of similar cultures of the young people globally through various routes. Culture is being created by integration of diverse media, and not by what is seen through a single medium. Typical young people's culture, which is formed due to the influence of media culture, includes community culture, pun culture, virtual culture and fandom culture. Second, in order to examine youth fashion that is seen in those media, the survey has been conducted on media stars, tecktonik dance groups, fashion models, avatars and online communities, which are fashion icons influencing young people. Third, youth fashion, which has been formed centering on media culture, has the flexible property that varies the symbolic significance according to which culture becomes the main axis. The symbolic significance in fashion, which is seen on media culture young people are contacting, has been examined in the aspects of value orientation, diversity orientation, speed orientation and digital orientation.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.80-92
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• 2017

Fashion trend is more than a social phenomenon that multitudes of people accept as popular styles of clothing. The purpose of this study was to understand the influence of fashion trend over time and distance. Geographically thousands of miles apart, the U.S. has strongly influenced fashion in Korea, revealed by references and historic depictions collected from literature and web sites. Results of the study are summarized as five issues: First, emergence of female missionaries from the U.S. American missionaries working in the late Great Korean Empire performed a significant role importing Western culture to Korea. Second, as opportunities of education increased, women studying abroad introduced Western fashion to Koreans when they returned to Korea. They were more open to Western culture than other Koreans and moderately harmonized their Korean sentiment and Western culture, mitigating cultural shock and enabled other Koreans to accept Western culture. Third, the effect of fashionistas on media. Singers working for U.S. armies stationed in Korea and movie stars appearing in Hollywood movies profoundly affected Korean pop culture and fashion trends in Korea. Fourth, following First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy of the U.S. She was an influential figure in those days and a fashion leader as well. Lastly, acceptance of working girl fashion depicted in American television shows. American working girls depicted on American TV shows were highly admired by young Korean women, so the fashion of American working girls became a major fad among young Korean women.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.967-983
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to review Hanliu phenomenon, a kind of social and cultural phenomenon, in China and to analyze its effects on the fashion style of new young generation of China. In this study, Hanliu phenomenon means the enthusiasm of Asian people for Korean mass culture including Korean dramas, pop songs, and fashions from late 1990s. This research adopts two kinds of methods for analyzing the phenomenon: qualitative and quantitative research methods. As a qualitative research method, we analyzed it with several sources of documentaries and audio-visual materials: articles from newspapers and magazines, special TV reports, and documentary movie files from Internet. As a quantitative research method, we surveyed approximately 100 female students of Beijing university and asked how they feel Korean culture and fashions. The Hanliu phenomenon led to the popularity of Korean products as well as general culture of Korea. Also, it influenced Chinese young generation so much that Korean fashion has become prevailing. Such influence on the street fashion of Chinese youths can be summarized in three factors as follows: First, Korean entertainers' fashion is widely imitated. For example, H.O.T-like hairstyles, hip-hop styles, large heel shoes with boots-cut pants, and long-curled permanent hairstyles have been on among Chinese youths. Second, the preference for Korean fashion products has highly increased. The number of stores dealing with Korean fashion products has increased. Even the 'Kim Hee Seen,' a fashion brand named after a famous Korean actress, was introduced. Finally, Korean culture and products have widely been imitated in China as much as the increasing popularity of Korean fashion products. This study reveals that Hanliu phenomenon is widespread in China, and Chinese youths are largely affected by the fashion styles of Korean entertainers. Also, Korean fashion products are largely imitated and benchmarked in China. Hanliu phenomenon is a big chance to approach the fashion market of China, the largest buying power in the world. To make inroads into the Chinese fashion market, we suggest that we need to have our own brand and to make the most of culture, stars, and Internet in marketing. Also, we need a well-planned strategy for a success in the Chinese fashion market.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.36
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• pp.123-147
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• 2014

The purpose of this essay is three-fold: to trace the genealogy of the Korean musical, which ever since its inception in the 1960s has been seeking to modernize Korean theater with Broadway as a constant role model; to investigate how the national and the global conflict and are conflated in the form of the Korean musical in the process of its (dis)identification with Broadway; and to examine how its intercultural translations reveal and reflect the dilemma and ambivalence posed by globalization in our era. Drawing on Richard Dyer's signature article Entertainment and Utopia, I analyze how the Korean musical manifests and conduits competing utopian impulses of Korean/Global audiences. I also attempt to problematize the formulaic notion of Broadway musicalsthe Superior Other!which implies a global hegemony that does not, in fact, exist because the boundary between the global and the local as well as the power dynamics of global culture are not fixed but constantly moving and changing. Today's musical scene in Korea shows interesting reversals from the 1990s, when Korean producers were eager to debut on Broadway and impress American audiences. Korean producers no longer look up to Broadway as a final destination; instead they want to make Seoul a new Broadway. They import Broadway musicals and turn them into Korean shows. The glamor of Broadway is no longer the main attraction of musicals in Korea. What young audiences look for most is the glamor of K-pop idols and utopian feelings of abundance, energy, intensity, transparency and community, which they can experience live in the musical with their favorite stars right in front of their eyes. In conclusion, I delve into the complex dynamics of recent Korean musicals with Thomas Friedman's theory of Globalization 3.0 as reference. The binary formula of Global/America versus Local/Korea cannot be applied to the dynamic and intercultural musical scene of today. Globalization is not a uniform phenomenon but rather a twofold (multifold) process of global domination and dissemination, in which the global and the local conflict and are conflated constantly. As this study tries to illuminate, the Korean musical has evolved in a huge net of interdependences between the global and the local with a range of sources, powers and influences.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.165-178
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• 2021

With rise in economic activity of fandoms, fashion brands often collaborate with K-pop stars such as BTS to enhance brand preference and sales. This study analyzes why people engage in fandom activity and its effects on collaboration fashion brand preference by focusing on 'BTS' and fandom 'Army'. This study aims to provide information to establish marketing strategies by identifying the influence of fandom culture related to the Korean Wave and the fashion industry, and empirically analyzing factors affecting active customer formation for long-term growth. The data were collected from BTS fan club 'Army' and a total data sets were analyzed using SPSS25.0 statistics program. The findings of this research were as following. Frist, BTS fandom motivation were identified as Need for Approval, Communication Need, Professionalism Need, Need to Belong, Consumption Need and the BTS fan groups were categorized into 3 groups. Third, comparing BTS goods values and collaboration brand preference an excess in each group was revealed. This study is significant because it provides essential data for the marketing strategy of fandom market by comparing marketing effects of BTS with the characteristics of fandom consumers and identifying the different desires of each group. As a result of this research, it can be seen that BTS an influential leading brand, has been adopted, and the research direction of empirical analysis has been presented. In practice companies can select specific fandom targets by using the sub-levels of fandom types that have become clear and implement marketing strategies of the fandom market.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.605-616
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• 2022

Given that the current Idol fandom has been enormously affected by the development of digital technology such as the Internet, mobile or social media, this study explored how generational fandom culture has been shifted depending on the fandom's use of differential online platforms and services, i.e., online community vs. social network services. The survey results indicate that 3^rd generation fandom showed significantly greater intimacy, greater attachment/worship, greater similarity toward Idol stars as well as greater fandom loyalty and greater fandom identity than 1^st and 2^nd generation fandom. Similarly, compared to online community centered fandom, social network centered fandom showed greater intimacy, greater attachment/worship, greater similarity as well as greater fandom loyalty and identity than community-centered fandom.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.169-176
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• 2016

Our Korean cuisine, due to growing interests in Korean culture along with outstanding performance of K-pop stars, is attracting worldly attention. As the worldly food pursuit tendency is changing from"fast food" to "slow food", preference for our Korean cuisine, which is well-known for its healthiness, is growing. However, our Korean cuisine, in terms of the world citizen's preference, as receiving evaluation for being lacking behind of Sushi of Japan, Dimsum of China, pizza and pasta of Italy, rice noodle of Vietnam, even to Indonesian and Middle-East foods, has not been achieving drastic advancements despite the cosmopolitan's attention. The previous studies were suggesting that, failure of a localization strategy that changes our traditional taste and aroma adaptive to foreigners' preference, is a cause for this. This study, through case studies of Korean food businesses in the US which have achieved a success through localization strategy, attempts to propose the following global entrepreneurial strategy of Koran food at the US dining out market. As a global entrepreneurial strategy for success, we propose, first a sales strategy not for Koreans but for local people as main customers, second a customization strategy which is not our traditional way but that meets local standard, and finally a committed entrepreneurship.